It was a time for reflection for the man introduced by TV presenter Vernon Kay
to the Olympic stadium crowd as the “one and only Lord Coe”.

Taking his seat among 40,000 spectators for a night of athletics and entertainment to mark the official opening of the Olympics centrepiece venue in less than three months’ time, the London 2012 chairman recalled the wasteland that once stood in what was one of the most deprived areas of the capital.

“If I think back eight years,” he said, “I’m standing at the top of a tower block looking at this site with the IOC’s evaluation team, feeling a bit like a Costa Brava timeshare salesman, saying ‘You see that rotting pile of fridges? That’s where the stadium is going, and that’s where the velodrome is going’.

“I’m still hearing the words coming out and they are looking at me. We’ve come a long way really.”

You can say that again. Demand for seats for last night’s session, part of the British Universities and Colleges Championships which is doubling as the official athletics test event for London 2012, was so strong that it sold out within 20 minutes. The organisers could probably sold another 40,000 had they not been limited by health and safety regulations.

In addition to the on-track action, admittedly featuring athletes of widely diverging ability, there was the draw of an opening ceremony hosted by Kay and Gabby Logan and featuring the rapper Chipmunk, former Spice Girl Melanie C, comedian Jack Whitehall and TV chefs the Hairy Bikers. Britain’s best-known Olympians, Sir Steve Redgrave and Dame Kelly Holmes, added some sporting ballast, while the Military Wives led a stirring rendition of the national anthem.

Unlike the global welcoming party that will be launched at the Olympic opening ceremony on July 27, it was all very British. But there was one overseas guest who was taking a keen interest.

Sitting alongside Coe was Lamine Diack, the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, who could never have dreamed he would ever be present in a stadium of such magnitude in London after Britain reneged on its promise to build a new venue at Picketts Lock to host the 2005 World Championships.

Diack, a member of the International Olympic Committee, is widely believed to have switched his vote from Paris to London at the host-city election in Singapore in 2005 because of the promise Coe made to build a stadium dedicated to athletics. London won by just four votes.

“If those four had gone the other way we’d have still been sitting on a 50ft pile of rotting fridges,” said Coe yesterday. “Westfield [shopping mall] wouldn’t have happened – or maybe in 20 years’ time you wouldn’t have had 15,000 homes there. You wouldn’t have had a school, a hospital and you wouldn’t have had sports venues.”

On the track, a number of Britain’s leading athletes were in action either as guests in student competitions or in separate elite races, though the night was more about acquainting themselves with their surroundings than eye-catching performances.

“The stadium’s kind of breathtaking,” said Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, the former junior world champion who was competing in his Loughborough University vest and won the 100 metres title in 10.42 sec. “You can imagine when it’s packed full of Brits shouting ‘Come on Harry’, it’s going to be immense.”

The challenge for Britain’s athletes now is to ensure they make the team – a prospect that became less likely for Kelly Sotherton yesterday when she pulled up with an injury during the 200 metres on the first day of the Multistars heptathlon event in Desenzano, Italy.